He holds a rusting bronze chalice in one hand, filled with some unnamable liquid. Whatever camera my eyes have become in this dream, I try to zoom it in on the cup, to see what is inside it—I want to know what the liquid is—but I can’t. He is too far away on his throne in the ocean, too far away to see what is in his cup.

When I wake, I can’t stop seeing Not-Don behind me in the bathroom mirror as I splash water on my face. Not-Don, or some other dark shape—it’s hard to tell when I can’t look at it straight on without it disappearing. I close my eyes on the mirror, trying to control my breathing, forcing myself not to snap them open to try to catch whatever is there. I tell myself there isn’t anything there. It is only my reflection.

But when I open my eyes, I wonder—is it really my reflection? Are those my eyes, gleaming in the yellowish light? Is that my mouth, almost curling up, with the ghost of a knowing smile?

Or is it only the house imitating me?

I slam my fist against the mirror; it rattles in its frame, my reflection jittering. I find myself disappointed when it doesn’t shatter or crack. To rectify this, I pick up the soap holder—a heavy, shallow dish—and slam it into the mirror, which has the desired effect: cracks spider-web from the point of impact, which gouges a hole where shards break off and fall.

At once I drop the soap dish and step back, staring appalled into my fractured reflection. How will I explain this to my mother? First the window, now this.

Unless I can convince her it was someone else. Someone who has just arrived, who shouldn’t be here. The King of Cups.

I think of the sort of father he will be, and it frightens me.

Is he the reason Julian will turn out this way?

Staring into my cracked reflection, I press my thumb into the smooth spot on my palm, filled with dawning horror.

I must get Don out of this house and away from Julian. That is the answer staring me in the face.

But how? I’ve waited too long to tell them about the cigarette burn—with the wound healed over, would they even believe me? At once I imagine them all lined up before me, telling me perhaps I should be the one to leave, after all, if I cannot get along with anyone in this house. And just like that, Elizabeth and Don will have taken over and kicked me out, once again, into the dark. Even my mother, I think, wouldn’t be sad to see me go.

But this is my house.

My face, still wet and broken into a thousand jagged pieces like a Picasso painting, glowers back at me, my eyes hidden in the empty hollow where the shards fell out.

I will keep everyone out of this house who does not belong—Don, the Shadydalers, the witch, whatever evil has leaked in. I will keep them all out until it is only us: my mother, my sister, and me.